Abilene Christian University has added three new members to its Board of Trustees: Donny Edwards of Decatur, Texas; Fernando Nasmyth, J.D., of Atlanta, Georgia; and Doug Robison, J.D., of Abilene, Texas. All were appointed at the board’s February meeting.
Donny Edwards joined the Sagora Senior Living family of companies in 1992 and has been one of its managing partners since 2006. Sagora Senior Living provides exceptional residential opportunities for seniors through the ownership, development, acquisition and operation of communities, including cottages, independent living, assisted living and memory care. Sagora manages and premarkets housing units for more than 5,000 seniors in Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida and California.
Edwards is a 1990 graduate of ACU with a business administration degree in accounting and finance. He is active in several national senior housing and real estate organizations. He also is involved in the community, and is an officer of several youth sports associations. He and his wife, Marcy, have four sons and are members of the Decatur Church of Christ.
Fernando Nasmyth is a graduate of Cornell University, where he earned aB.A in government and a juris doctor degree from Cornell Law School. He also completed ACU’s Certificate Program for Alternative Dispute and Conflict Resolution. He has held leadership positions in legal operations, portfolio and asset management, and capital markets during his 36-year career with Aetna Life & Casualty, GE Real Estate, GE Capital Investment Advisors, SSR Realty Advisors, BlackRock Realty and The Hanover Company. He retired in 2017.
Nasmyth chairs the Greater Atlanta Christian School board, is vice chair of the GAC Foundation board, and has served on the boards of several nonprofit organizations. He is director and secretary of the Board of Directors for The Leadership Empowerment Project, a nonprofit focused on improving the four-year graduation rates of college students in underrepresented communities.
Nasmyth and his wife, Donna, have two children. He has been an elder at the North Atlanta Church of Christ for more than 25 years.
Doug Robison earned a business administration degree in 1979 from the Texas Tech University School of Business. He graduated in 1982 from Texas Tech’s School of Law and is licensed in the State Bar of Texas. Robison’s expertise includes oil and gas law, transaction law, negotiation of complex oil and gas projects, and all phases of their exploration and production. He is known across Texas as an expert in the analysis and communication of issues impacting the independent oil and gas community.
He previously worked for Henry Petroleum and Exxon Company, USA in Midland, Texas. In 2010, he established the Robison Excelsior Foundation with a mission to serve as an example of and catalyst for Christian charity to people in need through a platform of grantmaking, volunteering, funder collaboration and community leadership. Robison serves as board chair of ChinaAid Association, an international nonprofit Christian human rights organization committed to promoting religious freedom and the rule of law in China. He also is chair of ACU’s NEXT Lab Oversight Committee. The NEXT Lab, or Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing Lab, works to address the world’s most critical needs of affordable and clean energy, pure and abundant water, and medical isotopes for diagnosing and treating cancer.
Robison and his wife, Angie, have two children, and are members of Highland Church of Christ.
ACU’s Board of Trustees is the governing body for the university, and trustees are elected at the board’s February meeting each year. They are eligible to serve up to five three-year terms. Trustees set policy, guide the institution’s long-term direction and ensure it fulfills its mission to educate students for Christian service and leadership throughout the world.
Abilene Christian is the highest-ranking university in Texas in a 2020 U.S. News & World Report benchmark focused on student success. ACU achieved Top 20 status in three of eight high-impact categories among 1,500 universities evaluated for “A Focus on Student Success” and is the only Texas institution to be ranked in five of the categories. Learn more at acu.edu.